CIAO

Born in 1921, Mittenwalde, Germany. Died in 1999, Cologne, Germany.  

The artist and poet Ursula Schultze-Bluhm, known as Ursula, is a notable artist of the post-war avant-garde in Germany. Poetic and surreal elements are the main motifs of her fantastic worlds, developing her own mythology.

As a self-taught artist, her art illustrates the idea that surrealism is not a style, but an attitude. Ursula has subvertedreality and found the strange in the everyday, challenging the authorities of society - and of art - by imagining new worlds in which old hierarchies are discarded and new ways of life are conceivable. Ursula shared this utopianimagination with artists such as Leonora Carrington, Leonor Fini, Dorothea Tanning and Unica Zürn.

It is impossible to categorise the essence of Ursula's work unambiguously. Terms such as naive painting, surrealism or individual mythology only hint at certain aspects of her unorthodox visual ideas, which always convey an intenselysensual experience. Her artistic freedom is undoubtedly well-timed, given that she has been ahead of the trends by avoiding them.

Her interest in painting and poetry began in 1950. This was followed by regular visits to Paris, where she met the painter Jean Dubuffet in 1954.They enjoyed a close and mutual friendship for several years, which was also reflected in the inclusion of Ursula's works in Dubuffet's Collection de l'Art Brut in Lausanne.

She lived and worked with her husband Bernard Schultze (1915-2005) in Cologne. Until her death in Cologne in 1999, she exhibited regularly in international galleries and museums, including Documenta 6 in 1977.Her works can be foundat the National Gallery in Berlin, the Dresden State Art Collections, the Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt am Main and the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou in Paris.

In 2023, she had her first major retrospective at the prestigious Ludwig Museum in Cologne, "Ursula-That's Me. So What?" curated by Stephan Diederich. Her first exhibition at the gallery was scheduled for November 2023 in The Gallery Gaillard  in Brussels.

VAN HAM Art Estate has been managing part of Ursula Schultze-Bluhm's estate since 2019 in cooperation with the Folkwang Museum Association in Essen. The art estate, which was part of Bernard Schultze's estate, was transferred to the Association of Folkwang Museums and the Ludwig Museum in Cologne after her husband's death in 2005. The catalogue raisonné was written by Dr Barbara Herrmann and published in 2007 by Dr Evelyn Weiss. The written legacyis housed in the German Art Archive at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg (GNM).